On Tuesday I also stopped by my friend, Gaelyn's, place to check out her secret garden. It's amazing, from the outside she has a lovely house and when you enter the high wooden gate into her backyard you're transformed into a different world, it feels like England in the 19th century, just lovely. Her little beagle was rolling around the yard while she identified numerous perennials and herbs and explained their properties to me. We had cherry juice in her screened-in porch and talked about our upcoming vacations. She also sent me home with a wagon full of perennial flowers and herbs for my garden. It was a grand time:)
Yesterday when I got back from work Dan and I worked hard in the garden until the sun went down. We finished filling all of our beds and started putting mulch around the beds (free from the county dump). We have made A LOT of trips back and forth to the compost yard and the county dump..... soooo much shoveling! But it's worth it, and it's free. We also made a trip to EcoGardens and spent my gift certificate on some flowers to mix and match in hanging baskets and ceramic pots for our outdoor porch. I love this town, seriously, it's a real town where you know all your neighbors and are genuinely glad to talk to folks, etc, etc.... we were anticipating being there for about 10 minutes and were easily there over an hour... We ran into the Rileys and chatted with them for awhile, they have two adorable toddlers who I talked with, we ran into Jim, Melissa, Jenny & Howie of course, and on and on. You can't rush any errands in this town, anticipate a true trip where you connect with others:) Poor Daisy was tied to a post there for quite some time, but, once again, she received a lot of obligaotry pets.
Grilled Asparagus:
Make a foil packet and fill with asparagus spears (make sure to snap off the woody ends), sliced green garlic, sliced spring onions, then drizzle with olive oil, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, and salt and pepper. Place packet on grill and heat for about 10-12 minutes.
Kimchi consists of fermented vegetables, in her mix there's: organic green cabbage, organic carrots, organic onions, sea salt, organic diakon radish, organic ginger, organic pepper, and organic garlic. They pound the veggies and ferment them in oak wine barrels.... and it is amazing.
Kimchi is considered a "living food", it is extremely good for your digestion, low in calories, and just full of vitamins and minerals. So, we may potentially be having this kimchi kraut almost everyday for the next year!
We also stopped by Cannon River Winery, an amazing local business that makes award winning wine from local grapes, apples, and honey. We picked up a bottle of mead (fermented honey) and a bottle of Mill City Red wine. For supper tonight we had a garden salad, pork sausages with our kimchi kraut, and we're still working on that bottle of red wine:)